The company plans to reduce spending by $1.4 billion, after coming under pressure from shareholders to make changes due to rising competition.
In particular, shareholder Jana Partners had been pressuring the company to separate its chip business from the more profitable patent-licensing business.
“We are making fundamental changes to position Qualcomm for improved execution, financial and operating performance,” said Steve Mollenkopf, CEO at Qualcomm.
“We are right-sizing our cost structure and focusing our investments around the highest return opportunities while reaffirming our intent to return significant capital to stockholders and refreshing our board of directors. Importantly, our Strategic Realignment Plan is designed to drive meaningful change in the near term – without jeopardizing our ability to retain and build upon our technology leadership position and create long-term value for our stockholders.”
